There’s
a free weekly magazine called Time Out New York that lists the upcoming events of
the week – movies, plays, comedy clubs, concerts, museum events, and other
entertainment activities. I believe the
same type of publication exists in other cities as well. There are community websites featuring such
stuff, too. But wouldn’t it be great if
there were a national database of such events as they relate solely to books and
publishing?
Think
about it. EBay, Craigslist, and other
sites are so good at listing things for sale.
How about a similar approach, but for books? Have a database of local events
that relate to bookstore signings, author appearances, library programming, and
the like. Then connect these local databases
so one can search not only their city or a nearby town (geographically), but by
subject matter or some other category nationally.
A
friend of mine went from NY to Chicago to see a Grateful Dead Concert. Normally, he wouldn’t go to Chicago to see
someone perform but this was his favorite group and the band wasn’t performing
anywhere else, so he chased them.
Perhaps if a particular author made a rare appearance somewhere and you
knew about it, you’d go far and wide to see and hear that writer.
My
suggestion seems simple enough:
Create
a site with a name like Book Events or Author Sightings or Book
Publishing Happenings.
Then
ask publishers, libraries, bookstores, and museums to post, in wiki-style,
upcoming events that relate to books and author or expert appearances.
The
listings could be uniform and include basic who-what-when-where-why-how info and the
listing would have a word-count limit and no images. Just keep it short and sweet.
Users
can search by location, date, or subject matter, or type of venue.
Such
a site could surely grow attendance at existing events and inspire others to
create additional events. Everyone benefits. Publishers and authors sell books. Stores
sell books. Libraries bring in
patrons. Consumers are informed. It’s a win-win situation.
We’d
still need a librarian or filtering censor to make sure non-book events aren’t
listed and that no other commercial activity takes place. This would simply be
a platform open to all, to post and read about upcoming events of interest to
the reading public.
The
effort to contact authors, publishers, stores, etc. takes time – and the cost
to maintain such a large site is not cheap.
Perhaps this can be addressed by an army of volunteers and select
advertising money. However it’s done, I
think it should happen. There’s no
downside to having such a site.
Just
as books inform the world, readers and fans need to be informed about books and
the events that support and promote them.
One doesn’t have to look up just movie times, upcoming concerts, or
comedy club performances – they can also see all of the nation’s book-related
events.
Who
wants to launch this?
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